


The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Jealousy, Light Bondage, M/M, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:55:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27567112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: No daylight between them.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames/Thomas Jopson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story comes from the work by Marcel Duchamp of the same name. It takes place during the interim between the carnival in "A Mercy" and the departure from the ships in "Horrible From Supper", and is a continuation of the events of my story, "My Other Voice". This story will make more sense if one has read "My Other Voice".  
> I am not involved in the production of The Terror. No one pays me to do this. This story and the work it's based on are fiction. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

The nights are long, even after the first light of the year, so that it seems, still to always be night, in all but name. Yet, there comes a queer tickling, almost a quickening, at the dawn hour. James would know it even without its being marked. The sun comes up, no more than a flash of white trickling across the horizon that you would miss if you closed your eyes for a moment, but perhaps it announces its presence to another sense. Perhaps there is a sound, barely detectable to the ear, more like the creaking of the ice, which in its lower registers seems to act more upon the tactile than the auditory sense, a deep groan that compresses the organs of the cranium. If the ice is a pounding, a beating, dawn is a sharp trilling, a ringing that stirs the blood, as though something could fragment in it, like the pieces of ice that will break loose and crumble into the sea. There is to James the suggestion of the fine gears and springs of a watch popping loose and unspooling, when the watch is over-wound.  
Or perhaps sunrise has a smell.  
Perhaps it smells like this.  
For the cold, they do still sweat. They are only human, after all; fine, perhaps, in the intangible sense, souls wrought of silver and gold by a celestial smith, thread-thin gears and springs, but the cases are of base stuff. Theirs are bodies that bleed, that excrete, that sweat. It is not always unpleasant. The scent of Jopson is that of a young man of neat habits, clean hair and clean skin, soap, clean linen and wool, polished leather, the smells of the laundry and pantry, wardrobe and writing desk. His handkerchiefs are always spotless, as though he never has actual need of them; only keeps them out of custom, for the sake of good manners, to offer to others, perhaps. Yet, even Jopson is touched by heat, his flesh thawing to dew in the closeness of Francis’ cabin, and the scent of him rises from the bed to fill the room, to fill James. Jopson moans softly, and James leans forward in his chair.  
Francis from the outside is a different creature than Francis from the inside. When James is with him, Francis is un-observeable, James being too far in it to do anything but feel him, smell him, taste him. From the inside, Francis is a buffeting tide, taking James’ clothes, his kisses, his body, his senses, dragging him beneath the waves. From the outside, he is more like the sea observed from land. For the longing that fills one in regarding it, the wish to again be among the waves, it becomes a thing less of elemental consummation than one of admiration. It is, and one feels diminished by the word as the word diminishes the sight, pretty. Is James diminished in this way, close to Francis, but as a viewer on the shore, watching ships in the distance? Yet, to look at the sea from land is sweet.  
Francis is still mostly clothed, but Jopson is bare. He could be carved of snow, for his pallor, but for the flush that has broken out on his cheeks, down over his long, curved throat, across collarbone and breast. That flush is like a wound, has the semblance of wounds newly-made, as though Francis had abraded him, branded him with mouth and hands. And Jopson’s mouth is so very red. So very red is his mouth, the color answered in the dusk peaks of his breast, the deeper rose of his cock. Deeper rose, still, in Francis hand, the back of the hand white as snow and scattered with points of amber, the fingers so pink. Rosy-fingered, even. James smiles to himself.  
Francis says something against Jopson’s ear that James doesn’t catch. It’s more exciting this way, if they whisper to each other, if he cannot always understand them, or see everything that’s happening, is not sure what they’ll do next. They are wholly for each other, in these moments, and in their knot of closeness, they are all the more completely for him. Like a play he wrote while drunk and sees performed when he’s sober, he has the vaguest idea as to how it will end, but all between beginning and end is obscure to him. They are his to behold, and to follow where they will take him.  
Caressing Francis’ cheek, Jopson murmurs: “What are sailors for, sir, but to tie knots?” He breaks into a dazzling smile, one James didn’t know he had; not sunny, not pleasant, or merely enticing, but actually wicked. James shifts in his chair. He hears how loudly he breathes in and then out, colors in realization that Francis and Jopson must also have heard. But Francis only looks down at Jopson, kisses Jopson’s wrist, then draws it up brusquely over Jopson’s head, so much so that Jopson gasps. James leans further forward. Crosses his legs. Francis uses his own tie.  
“Please be careful, sir,” Jopson says absently, “or it’ll fray.”  
“Hush, now,” Francis scolds gently, his expression soft as he ties Jopson’s wrists together, over Jopson’s head. Stretched out, Jopson’s body makes an arc, his shoulders pushed back and his hips pushed forward. Francis resumes touching him, but more slowly. With Francis sitting back on his knees, they can all three of them see what is happening, and Francis watches Jopson as Jopson watches himself being operated upon as James watches them both.  
“Do you like that?” Francis asks softly, and it’s not immediately clear to whom he’s speaking, or if he knows, himself, or if he even meant to ask the question aloud, his gaze now directly on the object of his labors. In the lamplight, the wetness at the tip of Jopson’s cock stands out like a pearl. It wells. It drips.  
He stops. Jopson breathes out raggedly. He tries to work himself in Francis’ grip. Francis takes his hand away. Leaning over Jopson, careful not to touch him, he’s still for a moment, watching Jopson, before he kisses Jopson’s mouth softly. Then, his throat, his breast, his mouth again, Jopson taking in hushed, quick breaths through his open mouth. His wrists still over his head, he stretches, bends toward Francis like a flower to the sun. And, truly, Francis is warm. Sometimes, James feels, his kisses burn, or simply likes to imagine that they do; a rich fever that could seal out the cold forever. Does Jopson have the same experience? If he does, it is a pleasurable burning, he wrapping his legs around Francis, their bodies now pressed together, Francis kissing him in earnest, two pink tongues visible for an instant to James. Francis runs his mouth down Jopson’s throat to his breast, Jopson moving in his embrace, rubbing against Francis, the preservation of Francis’ wardrobe forgotten, a small wet spot discernible on Francis’ shirt when he turns toward the light.  
As he bows his head, takes his place between Jopson’s legs, Francis’ hair catches the light. For a moment, James is dazzled, feels a strange sense of displacement. He could be looking directly into the sun. It’s the sun at dawn, back home, where dawn comes with color.  
Jopson moans, a helpless sound that fills James with a kind of tender sympathy even as he slips his hand into his drawers.  
A drop of liquid spills from Francis’ mouth, down his chin, to his jaw. As it continues its downward journey to his throat, it catches, for an instant, the light.  
A flash of white.

*

The nights. The nights are endless. Even now, with the sun cutting a progressively larger golden slice into their world, night remains the only thing to see, the only thing around them. Maybe he’s becoming perverse, but Francis is greedy for the nights. For the darkness, when men do not see as well as in light, even with the aid of a candle or a lamp, and for the sleeping sense that settles over the ships. If everyone walks as though in his sleep, looking little and seeing less, it is fitting, and it is welcome. It was welcome during his illness, when it would not have done for him to have been sought out, seen. It is welcome, still, now, when he has another reason to cherish the refuge of his rooms.  
It’s just as well they’ve tarried, haven’t yet gone through to the bedchamber. The table isn’t suitable, but it will, at least, allow for greater freedom of movement than the bed. Needs must.  
“My weight, sir,” Thomas says, laying his hand flat against it, glancing back uncertainly.  
“If we were asking it to bear mine, we might have cause to worry, but I think it’ll support you,” Francis replies.  
Smiling, Thomas perches cautiously on the edge of the table. “You must imagine me to be insubstantial.”  
“That’s the last thing you are,” Francis says, and putting his hands on Thomas’ knees, kisses him. As Thomas lays his arms on his shoulders, Francis feels James’ arms wind around his middle, and raises one hand to reach for James behind him. Thomas spreads his legs, and Francis and James come forward, Francis now deeper in the embrace they form around him. His eyes closed, the hands touching him are difficult to match to their owner, and he lets himself for one heady moment imagine being made love to by both of them at once. The idea, taken to its natural conclusion, raises a flush to his throat, as though from indignation. Truly, for an instant, Francis does feel, not ill-used, but exposed; exposed, or even laid open, as though simply thinking it had made it so, and they already know him, inside and out. It’s like a shock, but as quickly as it assumed him, he lets it go, lets enfold him the simple pleasure of it, his eyes still closed, turning himself forward and back to kiss Thomas, caress James; caress Thomas, kiss James. All the while, they touch him, disarray him, uncover and gentle him. It goes around and around until they find themselves shuffled, so that it is now James face to face with Thomas, Francis behind James.  
“Lie back,” Francis hears James tell Thomas.  
“Sir?” Thomas says. It touches Francis, though it may annoy James, make him feel like an interloper. It would be, Francis decides, impossible for James not to feel this way, because James is proud, but James is warm, so warm and so giving, at times overflowing, so that it must hurt to be dammed up. It must prick his sense of himself, it suddenly occurs to Francis, the realization coming with a strange kind of shame, as though he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to, or taken a jest too far and caused offense when it wasn’t intended. Yet, Francis finds that he must continue, imagining the wound to James in both the seat of pride and that of generosity, to be told, even indirectly, that he must ask Francis for permission. It must irritate him in ways he finds difficult to bear, but he does bear them. He bears all, making a kind of reflection to Thomas: Thomas’ fidelity; James’ patience. The feeling this produces in Francis is like a sort of softening. Somewhere inside, he’s suddenly tender, as though bruised, and he feels such an ache, for both of them. He tries to make a separation, to determine for which of them it is stronger, but he cannot, and attempting to do so distresses him in a way he can’t place, so he lets off, and allows himself to feel how he naturally feels. It’d be unsupportable, he reflects, if it weren’t also so sweet, so pleasurable a desire to lay himself before them and let them wound him a little bit more.  
Sometimes, he surprises himself.  
“You must do what pleases you,” Francis says softly, “whether it’s with me, or with James.”  
After a moment, seemingly resolved, Thomas does lie back, James slowly easing down over him. The table creaks. Before he kisses Thomas, he touches softly his face, his neck, putting him at his ease. Perhaps there’s less pride in James than Francis imagined. It’s pleasing to imagine that he can still learn something new about James. He is still learning James, he corrects himself sternly. He has not yet understanding; only the barest impressions, and his own seeking, curious faith. Never is that plainer than now. When he’s alone, he sometimes wonders if James will not steal Thomas away from him. Immediately, he regrets it. Even thinking it feels wrong, like something shoved into a space not made for it. Yet, the thought still comes, every once in a while, like something making a circuit, unbidden but regular.  
He’s ruining a perfectly lovely evening. He moves his hands down James’ hips, to the front of his trousers. He keeps his hand there, as James kisses Thomas, progressing, but delaying, James moving as he will, Francis only just touching, feeling him, the shape and heat of him within his clothes. He undoes James’ trousers, hears the sound James makes against Thomas’ mouth, feels James’ hips move of their own accord, stuttering forward, and then back, into Francis’ grasp. As James moves lower down Thomas’ body, unsettling him, exposing him as he goes, James’ hips ease further back, until he’s bent over the table, his head between Thomas’ legs. For a moment, Francis watches James, the angle obscuring what the motion makes obvious, James sucking Thomas’ cock, Thomas’ hands in his hair. Slowly, he lowers James’ trousers, and weighted by his braces, they slip down easily. He unbuttons James’ drawers, pulls them down enough to expose James’ rear, pushes James’ shirt up. He makes the suggestion of a motion, and James spreads his legs, his breath hitching, a sharp inhalation through the nose, an answering rumble deep in his throat. Thomas exhales shakily, “Ah.” Francis licks his thumb to wet it. James seems to have anticipated him, not starting away or exclaiming, but only making another soft sound as Francis brushes his thumb against James’ hole. He rubs slowly. He presses in with his thumb until it enters. James’ hips jerk. He tightens. After a moment, Francis withdraws.  
Then, Thomas opens his eyes, looks at Francis. Thomas’ mouth open, he might be about to speak.  
Would he ask Francis what Francis is thinking?  
Francis does not know, himself.  
He leans forward, he mouth next to James’ ear. This close, his breath must touch Thomas’ skin. Thus engaged, James can’t answer, but the sound he makes suggests that he’s not averse to the idea.  
“Sir?” Thomas asks, drawing himself up on his elbows. “Captain Fitzjames, if you please...”  
Breathing heavily, James pulls back, pulls up his trousers. He touches his mouth, pushes his hair behind his ear. His mouth is red, but for all of that, his face remains strikingly pale. He clears his throat. Now, he does color, very slightly. “Francis would like to know if you’d enjoy taking me from behind.”  
“If it’s not too much,” Francis says softly, though to which one of them it’s directed, he’s not sure.  
“It wouldn’t be the first time I greeted a friend at the front gate and saw him out the back.” The way James says it, he could be in the cheery glow of the captain’s table on Erebus, being pressed for and relating tales of valor, surrounded by admirers. Here, the lamplight doesn’t reach the corners of the room, which seems to both extend for leagues in all directions and pinch with its tightness. Outside, the wind howls, blowing so fiercely that the snow falls sideways. James is smiling, and Francis can’t help but smile back at him, the clash in tone and surroundings oddly endearing. Francis keeps finding that what once annoyed him, he now greets with fondness, and feels somehow wiser for this discovery, no matter how many times he makes it.  
“You say such things, sir,” Thomas answers, falsely shy, making as much of a display as James, but in a different direction. For all that Francis can read Thomas, he sometimes puzzles over what it is he has discerned, making him reach out with greater determination to grope for understanding.  
Now, softly, James says, “If it pleases you, you may have me.” He’s looking at Francis when he says it. Quickly, though, he shifts his gaze to Thomas. How softly he regards Thomas, now leaning forward, his hand against Thomas’ cheek. Thomas’ trousers and drawers are still down around his hips; his cock, flat against his belly. A thick and prickling flush winds its way up Francis, starting at his breastbone. A fitful feeling grips him, within, stamping out his feelings of fondness, of openness, making him feel walled-up, inside of himself.  
Francis is, he realizes with a start, a galvanic pulse that makes the heat all the more ardent and the fitfulness into an ache, jealous.

*

How strange it is to realize that this is the first time he’s seen the captain completely undressed.  
Perhaps, then, because of something betrayed by Thomas’ gaze, it occurs to the captain, too, because he colors, down to his breastbone, raising in Thomas a kind of weary concern. He longs, even as he’s pulled by longing in the opposite direction, to take up the captain’s discarded garments and put them back on the captain, to shield the captain from the cold, from seeking eyes, even Thomas’ own. His hands all but ache with the desire. He makes himself stay still, will remain that way until he is needed, until the captain, by word or by look, asks for him. The captain sits down for a moment at the edge of the bed, before he thinks better of it and lies down; touches the bedclothes, as though he thinks to cover himself, but then thinks better of that. The matter of the captain’s position settled, at least, Thomas allows himself to relax into the luxury, the liberty, of simply looking at the captain’s naked body. Perhaps ‘surveying’ is the correct word, Thomas thinks absently, and reaching for this word gives him a queer thrill. It’s a word of command, of ownership. He, himself, is bare but for his shirt, keenly aware of the cold where it touches his uncovered parts; the cold both unpleasant and invigorating, like a warning slap. Fighting both the cold and his increasingly acute sense of himself, his position, his nudity, he makes himself sufficiently bold to hold his gaze on the captain. The captain’s skin is pale, untouched by the sun for so many months, but animated by the blood beneath, a flush like a scattering of poppies across the breast, up the throat, reaching his face, touching even his mouth. Freckles dot the captain’s shoulders, and his back, Thomas cannot see at the moment but knows, having seen them spread before him when he undressed the captain. The captain’s body, Thomas knows thoroughly by touch, if not wholly by sight, the breadth of shoulders and back, often tight with weariness; the sweep of collarbone and the knob of bone in the wrist; the fullness of the breast and belly, softening with age; the curves of thigh and bottom; tender, shadowed places Thomas has mapped by hand and mouth. Thomas has seen, but in pieces. Now, the picture is complete. Without meaning to, Thomas opens his mouth, sighs out a breath. Having done it once, he lets himself do it a second time. He feels an ache within, like the cracking and breaking of ice.  
All the while, he realizes, as though waking suddenly, Captain Fitzjames has been watching. He looks now, as Thomas looks. At whom is he looking? His back turned to Fitzjames, Thomas cannot see, but he fancies that he feels Fitzjames’ eyes on him. It arouses a feeling of defiance; as though he were doing this to spite Fitzjames.  
“Are you sure, sir?” Thomas asks. Even to his own ears, he sounds an unsure petitioner, but the assurance he seeks is not for himself. He would have the captain say it again, clearly, so that Fitzjames hears it.  
“Quite sure, Thomas,” the captain says softly. His expression is calm, almost somnolent, as though he were being ferried to a restful slumber. Thomas approaches the bed. Carefully, he eases himself down onto the captain. He is embraced. He’s kissed, the captain’s hands under his shirt, moving up his back, exposing him from behind. Thomas hadn’t intended to let Fitzjames see so much of him, and he colors fretfully at the thought, as at something were slipping away from him. Fitzjames, like a utensil that doesn’t match the set, but becomes part of it through use and custom. They’re all but pushed together in so small a chamber, and Thomas cannot help but hear the sound that Fitzjames makes, low and deep in his throat. Thomas gets up on his knees, lets the captain help him out of his shirt. His earlier concern now seems silly to him, and he stretches his neck, his back, holds his arms over his head, his eyes closed. He feels himself smile, as though from a pleasant dream. He doesn’t know why he thought to stay covered. Fitzjames has seen him nude before, he reminds himself. Modesty is not only false, but unreasonable.  
“Stay like that for a moment,” the captain says.  
“Yes, sir,” Thomas says. The captain smiles at that.  
The captain’s hands are on him, all over him, gently, expertly seeking, caressing him, making him useful to his task. The captain pats his hip, and he sits back, helps the captain get up on his hands and knees. He’s done this with the captain before, but not to so great an extent, and never with an audience. Practice guides him, though, in entering the captain with lubricated fingers; first one, and then another, the captain’s responses exciting to Thomas in their familiarity. The act, itself, is somewhat different, for its mechanical similarities. It’s agonizingly slow, painful in the need for patience, and Thomas is at the odd moment unsure as to how he’ll be able to go on. He won’t be able to. He’ll succumb all at once, the job only half done, spilling all down the captain’s thighs, and onto the bedclothes. Thomas will feel such shame, but an additional secret satisfaction in his own weakness. There is sometimes such pleasure in being made to feel weak. All the ways that the captain makes him weak are precious to him. Yet, he does manage it, entering completely, his heart thundering so, the captain must feel it. For a moment, Thomas stills himself, breathes in deeply. He tests the warmth and grasp of the captain’s body. Almost with dread, he looks down at the place where their bodies join. It is-  
He sighs. He makes himself think of the captain, of what he might be feeling, for if Thomas thinks of himself, what he is feeling, he will be lost. He asks, “Is that all right, sir?”  
“Yes, Thomas.”  
Slowly, he runs his hands over the captain’s body, his back, his hips, his thighs. Thomas’ eyes are closed, but he knows that Fitzjames looks. Let him look, Thomas thinks. Look at this man. At which man does Fitzjames look? Does he imagine himself as Thomas, or as the captain? Thomas has had Fitzjames, so Fitzjames knows this position well enough, but having not had the captain, the other is as yet unknown to him. Unless he has. Unless he has already, and neither of them thought to tell Thomas. Bitterness injects itself into the hollow place that opens up in Thomas’ breast. Yet, it’s bitterness that doesn’t decrease, but rather increases appetite, the image coming unbidden of Fitzjames in the place that Thomas now occupies, though eased back and kneeling, in order to accommodate his long legs, the captain resting against Fitzjames’ body, transfixed and caressed, open-mouthed with pleasure.  
It had been an awkward arrangement, Fitzjames so much taller than Thomas, bent at a strange angle over the table. Yet, the initial distractions had quickly fallen away, once Thomas was inside of him; completely, irrevocably. Whatever else passed between them, even if Fitzjames ended it right there, Thomas would still have known him. Like this, there is very little tangible difference between one man and another, but it’s Thomas that makes up the difference in what he feels for the captain. It’s pleasure of an abstract kind; strangely, it is increasingly abstract, the more it grows in the immediate sense. Look at the captain, Thomas thinks absently, trying to concentrate on keeping an even rhythm. Look at this man. How he delights.  
Does Fitzjames treat the captain brusquely, or is he gentle? Does he ride from behind, or from the front? Thomas would have had it be from the front, for his own pleasure, but chose the rear for the captain’s. He has his hand between the captain’s legs, touching him slowly, patient but expectant. He notes a stirring. It raises his own enthusiasm, and he feels the temptation to become reckless, to thoughtlessly chase pleasure where it will take him. If Fitzjames was going to offer himself like that, Thomas had no reason to spare him. His head falls forward, and his mouth falls open. A pained gasp drops from his mouth. “Sir…” he says stupidly, with nothing to follow it.  
“Don’t stop,” the captain says. Under Thomas’ hands, he moves fitfully, fucking himself backwards and forwards. Thomas hears himself moan; an echo from the captain. “Oh, Christ,” he bites off the blasphemy then spits it out.  
There are freckles on the captain’s back.  
“Sir-” he begins again.  
“Stay as you are,” the captain says on a labored breath, “please.”  
What is Thomas for, if not to take orders? It is, it transpires, a very sensible order, because the very next thing out of the captain’s mouth is a soft moan, almost a gasp of surprise, and then another, very much like the sounds he makes when he’s in pain. That hurts Thomas, someplace inside, with resonating memory. The captain moves with Thomas through it, continuing to try and failing to stay quiet, as Thomas is swept up, has to concentrate on not finishing too roughly, which he would dearly like to do even as he is needled by concern. He keeps his hands steady on the captain’s hips, steadying himself even as he spills himself into the captain. The sound he makes must shake the very ice that grips them.  
Slowly, he withdraws, his nerves still sizzling, like the wick of a candle pulses once more with light after its flame is blown out. He struggles to remember himself, sees to them both with a wet handkerchief. He’s aware that he’s murmuring inquiries as to the captain’s state, but if he gets any answer, it slips from his mind immediately. All at once, he forgets himself, embracing the captain from behind, pressing his lips into the sea of freckles on the captain’s back. Again, opening his mouth, rough with his tongue as though he could taste the pigment on the captain’s skin, rub it off and swallow it, letting out a sigh that makes him quiver as it emerges. “Sir,” he says softly. With care, the captain turns to face him, says his name, kisses him gently, pulling from Thomas a sound, soft and desperate, that he didn’t have from Thomas during the whole of the carnal operation until now. They lie on their sides, facing each other, and he caresses the captain, allaying pain that he’s sure exists only in his own mind, the captain evidencing no distress, only kissing him, holding him close.  
If only this were all there was to it.  
After a time, Fitzjames approaches the bed. Thomas feels Fitzjames somehow before he hears, or opens his eyes to see him. Thomas is displaced. He puts on his shirt, goes and sits in the chair next to the bed. It is where he sat, attending the captain during his illness. It should feel like pollution, mixing the two occasions, but they are both so purely his, so purely his and the captain’s, that it only feels like pollution when Thomas considers Fitzjames. He watches them kiss, touch each other, Fitzjames arching over the captain, his head bowed, his hair hanging like a handkerchief of chestnut silk; moving up to bring his breast to the captain’s mouth, the captain’s hand between Fitzjames’ legs.  
“On your side,” Fitzjames says softly, in answer to a question that Thomas didn’t hear clearly, but can imagine its contents. As though in sleep, his eyes closed, his expression contented, the captain turns, draws up one leg, showing the lingering dampness on the insides of his thighs. Fitzjames spits into his hand, though he hardly needs it, his way already eased. It is for his benefit that Fitzjames chose this position, Thomas decides; the better for Fitzjames to show himself off. Thomas can certainly see all of Fitzjames, cannot help but see all of him. In their previous engagements, Thomas hadn’t taken much interest, had only given a perfunctory examination to the front of Fitzjames. Fitzjames is, Thomas is now forced to acknowledge, bitterly, comforted by this bitterness, as pleasing in that respect as he is in others. While the difference in length was inevitable, Fitzjames being so much taller than Thomas, Thomas still wonders if the captain ever compares them, finds Thomas insufficient. If pressed to honesty, Thomas might admit that he now regrets not having made more of an effort with Fitzjames the night before. Thomas would not, in fact, have known that Fitzjames had spent, had Fitzjames not made such a show of crying out. If Fitzjames was going to make a spectacle of himself, Thomas decided that he had no cause for restraint. He had been a little unkind, he reflected afterwards, then felt a flash of danger at the prospect of having damaged Fitzjames. The captain is so very fond of Fitzjames.  
“Come here, Thomas,” the captain says, drawing Thomas from his thoughts.  
Apologetically, Thomas smiles. “I wouldn’t fit, sir. The bed-”  
“It’ll be a tight squeeze, is all.”  
“I’m sure none of us would mind,” Fitzjames says. It seems too much like both a challenge and an order for Thomas to refuse, weak and indulged as it makes him feel, at having others divine what he most wants, yet wouldn’t dare ask for.  
Carefully, Thomas arranges himself into the sliver of space left for him by Fitzjames and the captain. It would be more of an effort to try to maintain distance, so Thomas doesn’t try, fits himself right up against the captain’s body, face to face, the captain’s arm around him. He feels himself smile, again in the captain’s embrace, all of his bitterness forgotten. He lets his hand roam down the captain’s arm, his waist, his hip, feels the motion of Fitzjames fucking the captain. Fitzjames is, Thomas notes with relief, with pleasure, considerate. The captain’s movements answer him, first halting, then fluid, as they learn to please each other. Thomas lets himself be drawn in, rubbing himself against the captain, or staying still while the captain moves against him. The captain’s head falls back, then forward, Fitzjames’ hand on his shoulder, head bowed to press his lips to the back of the captain’s neck. Look at him, Thomas thinks fondly, giddily. Next time, he thinks, next time, for there will be a next time, there cannot but be a next time, next time, Thomas thinks, if the captain wishes it, they must find a way to arrange themselves so that one of them may have the captain in his mouth while the other has the captain from behind.  
Fitzjames’ hand covers Thomas’ where it rests on the captain’s hip. Thomas spreads his fingers, lets Fitzjames’ slip down between them, his fingers intertwining with Fitzjames’.  
“James,” the captain breathes, then, “Thomas,” the sound rumbling against Thomas’ lips when he raises them to the captain’s throat. Fitzjames moans softly. The captain’s mouth falls open. Thomas trembles in the captain’s arms.  
It is a very tight squeeze.


End file.
